Occupy violence kills support — even in the Mission

Last December I went out to the Occupy San Francisco camps to talk to the protesters. I met middle-class people who had quit their jobs to protest, students with a cause, and motivated homeless folks with something to say.

This week I went to street demonstrations on May Day on Market Street. The sensible people were gone. Later bricks were thrown, windows broken, walls were spray-painted. It was dumb, mindless violence.

On the other hand, I’m old. Maybe I’m out of touch. I checked in with Jason Perkins, the owner of a hip music venue called Brick and Mortar in the Mission district. His small businesses there and in Oakland had taken $30,000 in damages.

“Look,” he said. “anybody that knows me knows I’m as radical as anybody. I think everybody at Goldman Sachs should be in jail. But to break my windows and I was forced to close the club — that’s really helping the movement. I saw guys on the street who said, Hey I was at the last Occupy protest. And they break the window in MY car? I’m as disappointed in the movement as I am in the damage.”

Frankly if you lose the Mission guys, you’d better re-think. They trashed Four Barrel Coffee, which volunteered their space for a phone bank for Barack Obama when he was running. Perkins, who grew up in the Mission — as did his mother — says he sends his daughter to a hip local elementary school.

“You can’t be any more liberal than these parents,” Perkins said. “They should be your biggest supporters. And all I hear was disgust.”

Perkins says it has reached the point where he thinks if something happens in the Mission, the uber-liberal, ultra-hip Mission, there may be confrontations between the residents and the protesters. That’s how bad it has gotten.

“You know what?” Perkins said. “Eventually, when you are a radical you grow up and have children.”

And take my advice, you don’t want to mess with moms and dads. Even in the Mission.